Amith Prabhu: Praxis 2014 is slicker, smarter and super

14 Jul,2014

By Amith Prabhu

There is one instance every four to six months when I use this space to promote an event close to my heart. I do it because this is not a commercial venture and MxMIndia is a founding online media partner. This column will give readers an overview of the upcoming summit, which is India’s only offsite, weekend conference for the fraternity.

This year we have divided the summit into two parts. The conference on afternoon of Day 1 and morning of Day 2 which is the main event and a workshop segment on the evening of Day 2 and morning of Day 3. While over 250 professionals are expected for the summit, only about 50 are expected to pay an additional sum and attend the workshop, which is being organised in partnership with The Communique, a company that focuses on training for PR and communications professionals.

The opening afternoon will have a keynote address and a special address along with two high profile sessions. The first of two keynotes will be by the mother of cause-related marketing in America, Carol Cone who is the global chair of the Business+Social Purpose practice at Edelman. This is followed by a session where we bring together four individuals who founded four of India’s big firms. They include Prema Sagar of Genesis BM, N S Rajan of Sampark Ketchum, Sunil Gautam of the erstwhile Hanmer & Partners which is now MSLGroup India and Madan Bahal of Adfactors. The other high profile session will have three veterans who run the Asia operations of some of the large firms. They are Viv Lines of H+K Strategies, Jon Hughes of Golin and Bob Pickard of Huntsworth. A fourth chairperson is likely to confirm shortly. This is followed by a perspective from Europe by Yanina Dubeykovskaya who runs an independent event in Davos called the World Communications Forum.

This then moves on to the regular feature of a few felicitations and a Friday evening of entertainment over cocktails and conversations, followed by dinner.

Saturday morning starts early with a panel of and by millenials from both in-house and consultancy backgrounds. This is followed by either a panel of corporate responsibility chiefs or a special address by an international speaker. Bonin Bough of Mondelez and Jimmy Soni of Huffington Post have tentatively indicated their interest to be present for this session. The second keynote will be by Paul Holmes who needs no introduction. The ultimate session is MINDFIRE 2468 where 10 firms are invited to present a campaign along with their client in not more than 8 minutes, using no more than 6 slides, with not more than 4 bullet points per slide and will have to be presented by 2 individuals from the client and consultancy side.

Once this concludes, attendees break for lunch followed by which those who wish to see the Taj Mahal may do so, the others are free to return to their next destination. The workshops commence at 3 pm with journalist Charles Assisi leading a segment on Creative Writing Skills and on the following day a session on Leadership Skills by executive coach Advait Diskhit. These sessions will be of four hours duration each. And one can register directly for these at http://www.thecommunique.co.in/workshops/

This seems like a slicker, smarter and super summit in more ways than one. More information is available at www.praxis2014.in This completes the journey to PR heavy zones from Pondicherry in the south to Lavasa in the west to Agra on the north. Since the response from the East is lukewarm, in all likelihood the summit will move to the South in 2015. Where and when will evolve from feedback and conversations.